Carbide cutting tips in the field of the invention have a flank, a tool face, a cutting edge provided at the transition between the flank and the tool face, and a thin hard material coating that contains titanium and nitrogen and is deposited on the flank, the tool face and in the area of the cutting edge.
Such a carbide cutting tip is described, for example, in German Patent Specification 3,020,929. According to this reference, however, the applied hard-material coating must be removed--for example by grinding--so that the cutting edge radius necessary for fine machining is obtained. This is because the cutting edges are rounded too much by the CVD method (chemical vapor deposition) practiced up to now. In the coating of carbides, the CVD method has probably not been dispensed with hitherto because it was believed that this method produced the best coating adherence. Carbide can endure the relatively high coating temperatures of about 1000 degrees C. without hardness loss. But a disadvantage here is the roundness of the cutting edge.